There is no question about it: most newspapers in the United States are on the ropes. They are not yet down and out, but they are close to that knockout blow. I know this, as most of you readers do, from personal experience.

I'm not sure what "Christian principles" the committee is referring to, but when it comes to the collected works and thoughts of Madison and Jefferson, I move that we go with the Bill of Rights over some nebulous, assumed principles. But that's just me.

As we witness yet again the brutal and bloody consequences of religious intolerance in the form of ISIS, we have a majority of Republicans pining for a Christian America. Proponents of converting the United States into a theocracy do not see the terrible parallel between religious excess in the Middle East and here at home.

We can and must do better. And, now is our chance to do so because, at all levels of government, decisions about education funding levels, equity, teacher quality, class size, student supports and technology are being made right now.

None of the candidates in the last presidential election said much about climate change or the clean energy imperative, not even Barack Obama. We cannot allow that to happen again. The media, the Commission on Presidential Debates, young people and voters at large need to nail down every candidate this time on what he or she would do about these two urgent issues.

The mere idea that members of Congress should be required to take annual ethics training speaks volumes about how far we have strayed from our founders' values, but may be necessary as a first step toward restoring decency and respectability in our nation's capital.

Neither public servants nor clergy nor holy books nor heroes are infallible. Battling obscurantism does not mean we are saints of any kind. It means we will not accept a tyrant's bogus paradise, and are free to form our own words and images and make up our own minds.

It is very likely that generations coming of age today will abandon -- out of choice or necessity -- the Dream of consumption and replace it with their own definition. The Dream is evolving, not dying.

Enter Thomas Paine, the one truly radical Founding Father, who was fighting for that soul of America. He was also the man who inspired a long and bloody war through his words in Common Sense and American Crisis, words often quoted by Neocons.

Passing the 13th Amendment helped to reconcile inconsistencies that were forged into our founding documents about: who we are as a nation, who we are as a people and how we wished to define ourselves as individuals.

And so it came to pass that God persuaded the Founding Fathers that all fellas should be permitted to bear these weapons to protect theyselves from intruders and folks who wore hoodies. Thus was it written in the Constitution and it remains the holiest of all laws in this here land of ours. Amen.

We appear now to be in a period of perpetually slender majorities.The American Congress is more or less split and will still be after this November's mid-terms, regardless of the technical outcome. Maybe it's not about victory... or policy... Maybe we need the "great innovation" that works regardless of division.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, and many polls, Barack Obama is exactly the right kind of pragmatic leader we need to have as President in these scary times. His steadfastness steered the country through the worst recession since the 1930s.

Urban farming is sweeping the country as individuals and families seek ways to eat more healthily while also whittling down the grocery bills. Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's legendary estate in Charlottesville, Va. recently offered two-days of gardening, farming, and DIY classes and demonstrations during its annual Heritage Harvest Festival.

The storyline has long been that Hart challenged the press to follow him around and, in the post-Watergate spirit of enterprising investigative journalism, the press did just that, fearlessly uncovering, well, er, what?